"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

and make the best of it. Let people talk if they want to."
"Well, I don't know what to do," Clem said. "This isn't the way.
There isn't any way at all. Nothing can ever be right with us when we are
three."
"There is a way," Veronica said with sudden steel in her voice. "You
boys will just have to get together again. I am laying down the law now. For
a starter each of you lose a hundred pounds. I give you a month for it.
You're both on bread and water from now on. No, come to think of it, no
bread! No water either; that may be fattening, too. You're both on nothing
for a month."
 "We won't do it," both Clems said. "It'd kill us."
"Let it kill you then," Veronica said. "You're no good to me the way
you are. You'll lose the weight. I think that will be the trigger action.
Then we will all go back to Rock Island or whatever town that was and get
the same hotel room where one of you rose in a daze and left the other one
unconscious on the bed. We will recreate those circumstances and see if you
two can't get together again."
"Veronica," Clem said, "it is physically and biologically
impossible."
"Also topologically absurd."
"You should have thought of that when you came apart. All you have
to do now is get together again. Do it! I'm laying down an ultimatum.
There's no other way. You two will just have to get together again."
"There is another way," Clem said in a voice so sharp that it scared
both Veronica and Clem.
"What? What is it?" they asked him.
"Veronica, you've got to divide," Clem said. "You've got to come
apart."
"Oh, no. No!"
"Now you put on a hundred pounds just as fast as you can, Veronica.
Clem," Clem said, "go get a dozen steaks up here for her to start on. And
about thirty pounds of bone meal, whatever that is. It sounds like it might
help."
"I'll do it, I'll do it," Clem cried, "and a couple of gallons of
blood-pudding. Hey, I wonder where I can get that much blood-pudding this
time of night?"
"Boys, are you serious? Do you think it'll work?" Veronica gasped.
"I'll try anything. How do I start?"
"Think divisive thoughts," Clem shouted as he started out for the
steaks and bone meal and blood-pudding.
"I don't know any," Veronica said. "Oh, yes I do! I'll think them.
We'll do everything! We'll make it work."
"You have a lot going for you, Veronica," Clem said. "You've always
been a double-dealer. And your own mother always said that you were
two-faced."
"Oh, I know it, I know it! We'll do everything. We'll make it work.
We'll leave no stone unthrown."
"You've got to become a pair, Veronica," Clem said at one of their
sessions. "Think of pairs."
"Crocodiles and alligators, Clem," she said, "frogs and toads. Eels